The first person that talked to me about resins coat on inkjet print on drawing paper was Marco Tardito (whom I also made an interview).

In the past I also tried myself printing on watercolor paper with my Epson 2100, but the results were terribly disappointing. Colors are completely wrong because standard profiles doesn’t work on artistic paper and black are almost grey, therefore the contrast is strongly flattened.

If the first problem is kind of easy to be solved, you just need a calibration device that creates custom icc profiles, the black problem is more complex. At its basis there’s a problem of excessive absorbing of the ink from the paper, expanding in its fibers and giving back flat and without blacks images. The ideal solution would be covering the background of the paper with a layer of some material that doesn’t allow the penetration of the ink. Well, in practice the paper for inkjet printer should be created at home. More than all of the sizing techniques, there are also pre-prepared products, such as Inkaid, a sort of paint which I was talked by Dorothy Simpson Krause in her interview and that, at least the producers say it, allows to print on each support.

It is a pity. Using fine arts papers is a very attractive idea. In general those papers are much more beautiful than the one for inkjet print and there is also an enormous, almost infinite variety with different characteristics available.

Inkjet print on Graphia paper. Let’s notice the contrast loss of the image.

I then got in touch with Marco Tardito and I was talked about a second possibility, that is painting after printing. After some time he brought to me in Paris some wonderful prints of still life (wonderful pictures as well) on paper like Rives BFK, heavy and textured, which means sponge for ink. Although this, black were the most lucid and deep ever, the prints brilliant and contrasted. A thick layer of transparent paint covered the surface, as some millimeters of plastic resin would have been poured on it (actually, the layer was thinner, but that was the impression). The irregular surface united the beauty of the paper with the beauty of hand-made objects. The only problem, in my opinion, was the horrible synthetic smell and an interrogative point on the print conservation in time.

Marco Tardito confessed me about his countless tests on paper and resin to find the right combination, therefore I tried myself. Seen the results, I’m far away from Marco’s wonderful prints, but I learned a lot about resins and paints anyway. Recently I’m mostly worried about photography and work than print testing, but who knows maybe one day I will take printing on watercolor paper more seriously.

Prints have been made on Graphia paper, an amazing, not too expensive, white and smooth Sicilian paper. Testing is not rigorous as usual. I just printed 5 or 6 different images and painted each one using 3 different resins: from acrylic to Arabic gum and a polyurethan paint. The followings are some notes about the experiments and the scanning of one of the images of the series. Scansions are particularly to execute, results should better be judged in person. Pictures are only reported as guide.

Acrylic

Acrylic painted print. White stains are the residuals of another print sticked on it.

Acrylic must be watered down, as it facilitates the preparation to every dilution. The solution has the aspect of a white viscous liquid, as a sort of vinavil diluted. It smells like ammoniac, but not so intensively. The seller told me that it doesn’t yellow, even after long periods; after two months I still don’t notice any kind of change. Half a litre costs almost 8 euros.

The acrylic, used directly at the original concentration, is really dense and thicken rapidly . It is much easier to coat the print when it is diluted one to one with water, but I’m still unable to make an even surface, without the brush streaks. Even with a dried, soft brush to smoothen the harshness, after the first coarse application (imitating the smoothing technique of the bichromate gum) it is hard to brush in a very uniform manner. When wet, the brushstrokes are white therefore particularly evident into the shadows; when it dries, they become transparent. The surface of the print keeps on being striped, evident if watching the print with a grazing light.

Probably acrylic should be diluted more and more to be scoated in an efficient manner or it must be sprayed with an airbrush. Anyway the seller told me that the less the acrylic is diluted, the more the acrylic is diluted the less the print is brilliant. Brilliance should be recovered superimposing more layers of acrylic. In this last case, we must verify that the successive layers will not soften and take away the past ones.

In about 30 minutes the print will dry, but if acrylic were working as all of the resins I used in the past, it would be better to wait some hours before the second coat.

The surface, even with some stripes of the brush, is homogeneous, in the sense that the stripes are regular and the effect can be lovable. The print is lucid and brilliant, such as the Arabic gum or the polyurethane, but I’d say blacks are less deep.

After some days, I put the prints one on the other and I put some weight on the top to flat them. All of the acrylic painted prints adhere one to each other; this never happened with Arabic gum or polyurethane. When I divided them, the part behind stuck on the picture behind. There’s no crease.

Arabic Gum

Inkjet print covered by Arabic gum.

Arabic gum can be solved on water as well, and this allows all kind of desired solutions. It is a sort of yellowish transparent liquid, characteristic that should warm the tints of the prints. The gum is practically without smell; the soft aroma is pleasant and natural, remembers about craftsmanship stores. A bottle from 1 liter up to 14 degrees baume costs less than 10 euros, turning the Arabic gum into the cheapest resin between the ones I tried.

I tried it directly without any kind of dilution, as all of my attempts with gum prints, knowing it would have been too thick. It is easy to paint with; the aspect of the humid print is lucid and nice. As far as it dries though, micro-bubbles born because of the paper absorbance, micro-bubble that can’t run away because the solution is too dense, making the picture surface irregular.

Probably this problem wouldn’t exist if Arabic gum were more diluted. Another attempt could be adding some ethylic alcohol, as in the preparation of paper for carbon prints it sensibly reduces the presence of bubbles. Superimposition creates same doubts of the acrylic; I didn’t verify if other layers remove the precedents. Arabic gum could be hardened with a little addition of potassium dichromate, making it completely insoluble. The problem is that dichromate leaves a green dominant in the gum and is very toxic, therefore I rather renounce. It is useless to use gum, a natural product, when you put a highly toxic and carcinogen substance in it.

Even after a couple of months, the surface of the print is gluey if touched, but it doesn’t seem like dripping or sticking like acrylic, which is perfectly dried when handled.

The surface, from perfectly smooth, has been covered with cracks that follow the sense of the paper fibers. Although this, the effect is still delightful.

In the complex, this is the resin I prefer: no smell, natural ingredient, brilliant and deep blacks, kind of easy to spread out, centenary photographic tradition that confirm its stability during time. But most of all, looking at the pictures, it is the one that I prefer.

Polyurethane

Inkjet print with one layer of polyurethane paint. Let’s notice the irregular surface of the print and the yellow borders.

This paint is solvable with a classic industrial solvent, not water. It is in fact greasy to the touch. Though its transparency, it has a slightly purplish color. It has an intense and unpleasant smell typical of solvents. I bought the cheapest paint I found in a DIY shop, but the price is 9 euros for 250 ml, the most expensive between the three resins I tried.

The polyurethane paint rapidly penetrates the paper. Even a large quantity is quickly absorbed. The humid paper is the most brilliant, but when it dries the surface becomes opaque. Its drawing up is easy and uniform, even with a hard brush. If, with some layers of paint, I could create the right surface that will not be absorbed, this would be the perfect resin.

Unfortunately, once the surface dries, it becomes irregular, in some zone is matte and in some others lucid. Blacks are actually deeper but the surface is very rough.

After only two months the polyurethane layer turned visibly yellow.

It’s been a long time since I first tried to convert pictures into drawings, or more precisely, since I first tried to define a procedure that allows the simulation of a charcoal, pencil, blood drawing from a picture.

The majority of the online tutorials use automatic Photoshop filters, that I personally consider awful, both artistic, stylization and border identification ones. Images always seem a little bit artificial, the artistic technique they refer in reality are really different, you always notice it’s a filtered picture and not a real drawing and all of those images are extremely similar to each others. It is recommended to work with your own two hands, more than entrust an automatic system.

The best tutorial I found online that I tested, based on this presupposition, is Photo to Pencil Sketch written by Tim Shelbourne (on his web site many other free tutorials are available) and published on Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook.

The pat result obtained with automatic filters.

The most difficult part of this tutorial is that you have to be a little bit painter to draw some pencil marks in a pleasing way or you suddenly notice that the creator could barely keep a pen in its hand. Moreover, it is practically necessary to have a graphics tablet, because a mouse doesn’t allow a correct drawing. I made attempts for some time and I finally found a rewarding way to remedy those problems. Besides, I found some little expedients that are not reported into the original article. I will guide you through the tutorial above mentioned with a series of personal reflections that will lead you to better results.

Picture preparation

Original pics to convert into a pencil drawing.

First of all, you have to choose the right image. Drawings and pictures works in a deeply different manner. Pictures have sweet tonal transitions, rich details, closed shadows and burned lights are usually not aesthetic. Pencil drawings must build blacks with marks, with discontinuous lines; grey scale is due to density relative to black and white lines. Moreover, drawings are less detailed: blocking, matters, surfaces are part of the paint; drawing is focused on edges, shapes, marks. Understanding all those rough differences is fundamental to obtain a good result.

Therefore, graphical images are the most adapted ones, which would work even with white, black and grey scales only. Poor and high-contrasted picture. Images where little details are not important, but where white and black volumes are indispensable. To make the image ready, it is advisable to considerably augment the contrast, to separate shadows from lights. A global augmentation of the general contrast is not sufficient and appropriate. Try to manually select parts of the picture, substantially augment or reduce brightness. Whiten, blacken, augment the local contrast, zone per zone. During this phase, you already need to have your goal clear and a little bit of practice is required.

It is convenient to prepare the image augmenting the local contrast, blacken or whiten some parts of the pics, eliminating undesired details.

Don’t be scared to force your hand. You can start from an excessively contrasted pictures, with some completely black shadows and a completely white face, where lips and eyes protrude with decision. It is not necessary to work with lot of precision, masks can be rude, selections can be not so precise, parts of the picture can be white or black.

There’s no problem even in using an out-of-focus image or a blur one. Actually, a photo you’d usually throw away is acceptable, as a soft photo can give wonderful results with this technique. so, if you have images with technical errors that you’d throw away with particular sadness, you can try this solution. A bad picture can be the base for a splendid drawing.

Preparing the drawing

Pattern Fill Option to simulate drawing paper.

Tim Shelburne’s tutorial begins creating a base that simulate drawing paper. Once opened and desaturated the image, create a new light-grey fill layer that will be the color of the paper you will use to draw on. Then, let’s go back to New fill layer -> Pattern again. In the second dialogue window, clicking on the arrow next to the icon, open the pattern menu. Clicking on the arrow again, select Greyscale papers. Tim Shelburne suggest the use of Fibers 1 and a Pattern Scale of 340%, to set the layer in Soft Light and 35% of opacity. This is obviously only one of the possibilities. The scale value depend on the image dimension; if it’s big, it is necessary an elevated value. In any case, remember this is a phase that only create a textured surface that seems a drawing paper, so you have to experiment with different patterns, different values, such as opacity and blending mode of the layer itself.

Help trace for your drawing

The second step of our tutorial make us building a trace that helps us drawings and that can be used to define the edges of the image. Duplicate the background and put it over all the other layers. To create borders, Tim Shelburne suggests to use the filter “Stylize -> Glowing Edges” with the following values: Edge Width 3, Edge Brightness 11, Smoothness 10; these values are not fundamental for the final image, even because often this layer only helps in the initial phase of the drawing and can be eliminated. Once the filter is applied, the layer must be inverted, to turn it into positive, put it in Multiply as fusion option and about 15% of opacity.

Pile of used layers. Scratch the mask of the last layer: here’s your drawing!

Our last stage before start drawing is the creation of another background copy, positioned over all the other layers. Let’s apply a little bit of noise, for example with an intensity of 10, to partially brake the the file and have a less photographic image. Select Darken as fusion option and add a black level mask. Drawing in white on this mask, you reveal the image underneath, the prepared trace allow you to choose where to draw. Cross sharp marks to simulate a hard pencil, use soft brushes to obtain the effect of a drawing faded with fingers. Keep the drawing marks separated from each others on the mask to obtain a pencil or pen drawing, mix them both to obtain a charcoal drawing.

The drawing

In his tutorial Tim Shelburne suggest to use a brush from the Dry Media Brushes set. I personally found this solution difficult, most of all for those who doesn’t use a graphics tablet and are not used to draw. I found a quick, practical alternative that achieve, in my opinion, more convincing result.

The option of Photoshop brushes let you modify the characteristics of a brush presets (cross). With Shape Dynamic options it is possible to mix the marks with random directions (square), while Scattering options offsets the marks (circle).

The idea is to find a way to produce defined and precise marks, quickly and more or less automatically, using a brush originally created to scratch (free download at Scratch Grunge Photoshop Brushes), obtained exactly the desired effect. Once installed the set, it is available a 572 pixel preset, with a long and thin shape, perfect to simulate the mark of a pen or pencil.

Pencil drawing with Photoshop.

This brush, when used directly, forms parallel and regular lines that suddenly demonstrate the digital nature of the image. Anyway, using brush options it is possible to effectively solve this problem. Press F5 to open the brushes palette. Brush Tip Shape window allow you to modify the inclination of the mark, for example if you have a preferred drawing direction you want to follow or if you want to modify the space between two marks that I suggest to keep large. In the Shape Dynamics window, modifying Size Jitter and Minimum Diameter controls, you can produce a series of marks with random inclinations, perfect to darken large blocking of the image. Use the Scatter window to offset the initial and ending part of all the marks. It is obviously possible to create presets, to quickly jump from a combination of options to another.

Detail of the drawing in Photoshop. On the background, lines are still rude to give the idea of a mark. Marks revealed the photo underneath, as you probably insisted too much on her face. I suggest to start over, avoiding to draw on the girl skin.

Using these options, it’s easy to mark a huge part of the image. As you build your drawing, it is important to insist on those parts you want to darken, for example not passing the brush on the bright parts, such as the skin. If you exaggerate with all these passages that reveal the photo underneath, you loose the effect of the desired pencil or pen drawing. Insisting on all the dark parts, the effect is extremely convincing. I suggest to mix the random direction of the mark with unidirectional passages, in order to create a certain coherence, a preferred direction for the drawing. It can be useful to add hand marks, with brushes such as Dry Media ones: in this case the effect is more similar to charcoal drawings than pen or pencil ones.

As your drawing take form, it is better to start interpret the image, leaving some zones clearer and darken others, creating some zones with a littler density of mark or leaving some zones totally uncompleted. Consciously select where to apply marks is fundamental for a good result of the drawing.

Drawing finishes

Multiply fusion option, even if sparse lines cross-hatching lightened the image, makes the drawing stronger and with more contrast.

At a certain point, it is impossible to keep on applying the cross-hatching, otherwise the noisy photo is completely revealed. Usually this is the point where I want to modify the image again, in a creative manner, re-invent the matter in front of me. From the moment where you start transforming a photo into a drawing, you must be brave and be ready to draw for real.

As free hand drawing can be difficult, press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E to copy a snapshot of your pictures into a new layer. Reduce the opacity of the brush and add hand made cross-hatching where you want to adjust the image, such as shadows to cover elements you didn’t want, for example in the background, or to give some more substance in the high lights. This is absolutely the most difficult part, but even the most funny. The image in the article shows a fine cross-hatching on the face, in a way to recover details but cover background, hands, hair as the face emerge from the black of the drawing.

There’s plenty of possibility to paint a drawing in Photoshop.

Once you reached this point, I suggest to duplicate your image once again, with Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E, and put it in Multiply fusion modality. This option darken the image, sometime even too much, but it can be useful to give strength to your drawing. This leads you to deep black as in the original image an effect otherwise impossible. In fact to have achieve this goal, you should scratch the entire mask, but this way you would reveal the picture underneath. To maintain a sort of drawing effect, leave some white spaces between the marks, that enlighten the image. Adding this layer deepens the black color, conserving the cross-hatching effect. Let’s pretend that the layer gives an effect similar to pen or charcoal drawings, while our drawing looks like an hard pencil one. Modifying the layer opacity brings to the desired effect and the right compromise between intensity and tonal gamma of the image. Now, I suggest to slightly regulate contrast and brightness, with a simple adjustment curve.

Your drawing is now ready. It is possible anyway to play around with some effects again. There are infinite way to colour monochromatic images, so you just have to choose the one you prefer.

Conclusions

The illustrated tutorial allows a quick and efficacious transformation of a photography into a pen or pencil drawing. You can find some examples of images modified with this technique on my photoblog, under the tag Drawing.

Moreover, it is possible to find a CS3 Photoshop action, pencil drawing, that automatize the majority of the work detailed in this article.

A couple of years ago, while I was traveling by car in the south of Italy, I was talking with a friend from Naples, photographer himself, about alternative print techniques. In particular, I was talking about superimposing brown prints, or Van Dyke brown, to cyanotype prints.

The answer was quick and laconic:

- Blue and brown is not allowed! (NT: in Italian the rhyme goes with a word that means rude, boor)

There’s also the twin proverb to complete the opera: “black and brown never allowed”.

In reality, superimposing iron salts brown print on cyanotype is a technique, as every technique, that could be interesting, mostly when printing the hardest negatives or to recover bad VDB prints. This phrase could be rude, but actually in alternative techniques world it is better to let yourself go, letting destiny play its trickeries, leaving space to serendipity and accepting what fate will give to you. Those who work with this kind of prints are used to it to discover an alternative look, produce different images to the ones we’re used to, create unique prints. This is the reason why there’s nothing better than case or, if we want, chaos.

This is the reason why, in general, I suggest the apprentices of alternative techniques not to throw away anything, not even the worst print; it could become an interesting element to (re-) work on. New techniques, combinations and possibilities are discovered every day and that bad platinum once thrown away could be the perfect one to test the new learned technique.

The technical advantage when superimposing cyanotype and VDB is that the first technique requires a softer negative than the second one. Which means that with a hard negative some tones can be covered with the blue of the cyanotype, some others with the brown of the VDB print. As the colors are completely different, dualtone, posterization and solarization are often interesting results.

It is possible to print cyanotype before and VDB after, or inverting the order. In the second case though, as the classical cyanotype formula contains potassium ferrocyanide, an ingredient used in many formulas to reduce the density of images and negatives overexposed or over developed, the silver image of the VDB print is largely damaged when the cyanotype solution has to be coated. Even printing a cyanotype before and a VDB after, the first print is a little corroded by the second coating, but the effect is contained and the results are interesting.

As VDB has harder negatives, the maybe fair high lights of the cyanotype prints are pleasantly filled up by the ferric salt print, creating a particular dualtone effect. The cyanotype blue will be desaturated in the presence of brown, turning it darker and more neuter, thing that I personally find more pleasant than the brilliant color of the direct cyanotype prints.

The picture inside this article has been shot in occasion of the Festa della Madonna dell’Avvocata, when the majority of the inhabitants of a couple of villages in the Amalfi coast goes up to the sanctuary and pass their entire day dancing the local tammuriata (NT: a typical style of music from the south of Italy). I shot this picture with an old mechanic OM-2, charged with FP4 Plus, Inter-positive on RC paper and negative enlarged on Adox film. Unfortunately the negative was too hard and I had to soften it with Dupont 4-R, Ederís harmonizing reducer. I printed a couple of cyan before soften it, among those the one I’m talking about, on the backside of an Arche Platine sheet where a couple of years ago I had already printed something with bichromate gum. As the negative was too hard, I superimposed a VDB print using the same negative. The cyanotype remains in shadows while VDB fills affably up the middle tones of the image. The cyanotype emerges inside the faces, underlining the visage characteristics. There’s still something missing in lights that I will fix when I’ll have some time and desire, adding another couple of bichromate gum layers to enrich the lights and let everything compenetrate.

In any case, something born as error could turn into interesting images. Even if some time can also be rude…

The photographs obtained using a zone plate in place of an objective, like pinhole photos, undergo significant digital noise and have a distinct character in comparison to that present on normal photographs obtained with an objective.

A zone plate is definitely more luminous than a pinhole, but remains anyway much less luminous than a traditional objective; therefore you often use the high sensitivity of the camera and/or lengthy exposure times. The images obtained are also very soft not only in terms of detail, but also contrast. Often therefore you apply levels and contrast curves in Photoshop in order to give energy to the photograph, while simultaneously amplifying the digital noise present in the image.

In the digital zone plate photographs and pinholes diagonal banding is often present.

The characteristics of the noise are extremely different from those seen in a traditional digital photograph. I have noticed, using both zone plates and pinholes, a strong diagonal banding at high frequency that crosses the entire image. In the shadows the noise then is intense and structured in an unusual way. The utilization of a program that filters the noise, such as Noise Ninja, does not produce the desired results, probably because the disturbance of the image does not occur at the frequencies for which the plug was designed.
In order to eliminate these artifacts a possibility is to apply a Gaussian filter, taking the noise out of focus and smoothing the image. The loss of detail in this case is almost always quite insignificant, considering that the zone plate photographs is already naturally very out of focus.

The visual characteristics of the noise of the photographs zone plate are deeply different from those obtained in the ordinary photographs rendering it difficult to be removed.

Another possibility is to add some grain in order to mask the digital noise. Personally this is a technique I prefer because in a completely out of focus image the grain creates a kind of constant to the eye in a word completely out-of focus, a steady structure allows a sort of system for visual reference to form.

When you add the digital noise in order to stimulate the grain of the film it’s essential to observe the result on a proof print, as the screen rendering causes an entire series of artifacts principally due to problems of aliasing. The images attached to this article are therefore only an indication. In each case, after many attempts with the original file, I have obtained optimal results on A3 size paper, using an Epson 2100 ink jet printer.

In the first place I have developed the raw file converting the photograph in black and white and playing considerably with contrast and curve. I completely burnt out highlights and set the shadows to pure lack, because what was interesting to me was the graphic effect and to amplify the impression of blinding light which is one of the characteristics of the zone plate photographs that attracts me more. The obtained obtained tonal range is typical of underexposed and overdeveloped films, that has a strong and intense grain.

A negative of the image applied as a layer mask gives a more natural grain on the picture.
Notice that in the mask, obtained as a simple negative of the original image, there are diagonal bands crossing the whole picture.

The resultin image, once opened in Photoshop, present a kind of noise that is very hard to remove and that looks badly. After removing all the dots correspond to grains of dust on the captor (in the case of zone plate and pinhole images, given the infinite depth of field, the dust on captor are all quite visible) I made a slight change of sharpen to make a drier noise. I then duplicate the layer and added a very strong monochrome Gaussian noise, more than I really needed, to have a good starting point.

In this way the noise evenly covers the image making it flat and not very bright. You see immediately that this is a uniform layer of noise superimposed to the photo, which does not looks as a real photographic grain, that instead constitute the image of silver salts when we use very sensitive film.

A simple and fast technique to have a nice effect is to simply add a mask to the layer with the uniform noise, to avoid add noise to the highlights.

In this way photography will mantein its contrast and brightness, and the uneven distribution of Gaussian noise looks as analog grain. To achieve this effect simply create a mask that is the negative of picture, and in the channels box, simply press ctrl and click on a channel, invert the selection, return to the pallet layer, make the layer which with the Gaussian noise active and add a layer mask.

The addition of grain covers the digital noise and produces a pleasing effect structuring the image.

Typically, this mask is too contrasted and needs some additional work, for example with the “levels” is easy to obtain the desired results. In general it is appropriate to make the black point a dark gray (using the “output” slide of the levels) in order to apply a minimum of noise even in high lights of the image. Following may be useful to intensify or reduce noise locally, lightening or darkening the layer mask. In this case, for example, I avoided to apply a too intense noise darkening the mask on the man body. To finish fine tune the final effect with the opacity of the layer.

With some experience you can understand the effect watching the picture on the screen, but, at least initially, is certainly appropriate to make print proofs. The final results is nice and realistic. There is the softness, the halos of light typical of zoneplate photographs, but the photographic structure consists of a nice, dry and well designed grain, very close to the the grain of old high sensitivity films.

Talking with Claudio Muzzetto about the article Local techniques of sharpening and noise reduction, we noticed the possibility of another passage that completely eliminates every kind of chromatic noise. The technique is used to reduce the color fringing, (colored halos between lights and shadows, generally due to chromatic aberrations), but can be successfully used to filter the chromatic noise. Once again, I suggest to download the images and observe them 100% zoom to notice the real effects obtained with the described technique.

Once arrived to the two-layers configuration described in the article quoted above, you would notice that some chromatic noise is still present inside the horizontal lines of the background, inside the girl’s pants and t-shirt. For the background, Noise Ninja correctly recognizes the edges, and to avoid a loss in details the plug-in doesn’t apply the filter in such zones. In the case of the t-shirt, the noise is probably recognized as detail; therefore once again Noise Ninja doesn’t filter the image in this point, leaving exactly some residual chromatic noise.

To avoid this problem, let’s move in this direction. Duplicate the Noise layer, which is the layer where noise has already been filtered with Noise Ninja. Name the layer as Anti color fringing and eliminate the level mask. Apply a slight Gaussian filter to the layer; usually an out-of-focus-ray between 2 and 4 pixels is enough. The image will be out-of-focus, but if you modify the blending option of this layer from normal to color, the residual chromatic noise will completely disappear and the image will be back in focus, thanks to the Sharpen Layer over the Anti Color Fringing Layer.

Using an out-of-focus layer in color blending option completely every residual chromatic noise, without loosing any detail.

The bigger the ray of the Gaussian Blur Filter the more the noise is canceled. At the same time though, if the image is plenty of zones where the color change from one to another, the saturation along those borders will decrease unpleasantly. As usual, we’re describing a compromise. In any case, it is possible to add a mask to avoid the application of this layer on some zones of the image. At this point you can head on as described in the quoted article, modifying the masks by hand, adding some monochromatic uniform noise, etc. The advantage is that no residual chromatic color will be yet present in the pic.

It is possible to automate all of these passages downloading the action set Noise and Sharpen.

Concerning analogical photography, once fixed the negative enlarger factor, the detail of a print is principally determined by a good shooting technique (absence of micro blur, correct focusing, correct depth of field and so on) and the resolving power of the shooting objective and the one on the enlarger. The image grain is determined by the film choice, exposition and development. Moreover the development allows controlling the acutance of the image. Furthermore, during the print phase, it is possible to modify both the detail and the picture grain, for example using contrast masks or out-of-focusing some zones with pantyhose interposed between the objective and the enlarger plan, but the interventions are long, laborious, hard to perform and have a somehow limited impact on the acutance and the image grain.

In the case of digital photography, shooting technique, objectives quality and exposition choice strongly influence the details and grain (or better: noise, as analogical grain and digital noise, even if similar, have different origin and characteristics). Anyway, the photographer now has two powerful instruments: sharpen filters and noise reduction filters.

Sharpen e noise reduction integrated in Camera Raw.

Unfortunately those instruments are often hidden to photographer or they are used mechanically and roughly. The consequence is that many old analogical photographers complain the noise and the absence of sharpness in digital images, thinking that it’s a defect inside the shooting system. Actually, this is largely due to the incorrect use of sharpen and anti-noise filters. The correct application of those instruments could bring to result similar to the ones the analogical photographers are used to or even better ones.

The article (in Italian) The sharpening, of whom I strongly suggest the reading, written by Andrea Olivotto, makes wonderful explanation of the digital techniques to control the acutance. It is a complete article, both for the introductive definition and for the advanced techniques, with tons of links to different articles, plug-ins and on-line resources. Russell Brown’s amazing website has a couple of video tutorials about sharpening, as well as on masks, that are intensely used in this article.

Talking about noise reduction, Noise Reduction Tool Comparison makes a complete confrontation of different software. Unfortunately, as software change (and ameliorate) frequently and quickly, the article is a little bit out of date, it would be better to take it as a list of possible software, software to be tested to find the one that better satisfy our needs. I once wrote an article on Camera Obscura about noise reduction as well: Add noise to eliminate noise.

Sharpen and noise reduction workflow

Noise Ninja application on the entire image with no sharpening filter.

Talking about my own workflow, first of all I put the sharpen and noise filter of Camera Raw to zero. Then I almost exclusively use the Smart Sharpen of Photoshop (go and see the finest Russel Brown’s tutorial at Smart Sharpen revealed) to manage the detail and Noise Ninja to reduce the noise. I use those filters because I know them well and the result completely fulfill me, but I’m not stating that this is the best combination. Anyway, the ideas exposed in the article – sharpening, noise reduction and the local application of the filters – can be well exploited no matter what kind of algorithm you will use to augment the acutance or reduce the noise of the image.

As any digital technique, there’s no manna from heaven that solves all of the problems automatically, otherwise it would be part of the firmware inside the digital camera. The most excellent results are obtained adapting the use of the instruments to the type of image on which you’re working and the type of result you’d like to achieve.

Depending on the case, I only use Smart Sharpen or Noise Ninja, possibly selecting the zones on the image where I can apply those filters. For example, I strongly apply Noise Ninja on skies, obtaining clear blues, even when the clouds contrast is augmented for retouch interventions. I apply only Smart Sharpen for detailed zones, such as gardens and hair.

Smart Sharpen filter application on an image with Noise Ninja already applied.

There are cases in which the manual procedure can be automated or completed by the use of surface and edge masks digitally generated. For this goal, I often use the TLR professional sharpening toolkit plug-in, which allows to obtain splendid results on images with both uniform and detailed zones. The results are particularly respectable, most of all when the masks are defined by hand, so that they completely adapt to the image. All these operations are effectuated on two copy layers of the background, one for sharpness and one for noise, where the masks are applied. This way it is possible to modify the intensity of the effect or the zones where the effect itself is applied.

In addition there are cases where this technique needs to be refined. Some images are particularly hard to work with and the choice of this or that software, the choice of the mask and so on are part of difficult compromises. Images with a strong noise, underexposed or shot on high iso sensibility, which still present highly detailed zones mixed with noise, such as sea surface or dresses, are particularly hard to be processed. In this tutorial I will show a solution that will use all of the quoted instruments and that will give back astonishing results in those complex cases.

Recovering wrong pictures

Smart Sharpen applied on the entire image. No noise reduction.

The image I used in this tutorial is part of a job I made some time ago. I set the camera “manual” to take some pictures of a location to paste in a stitch. Then the model straight a strange pose and I suddenly took a picture, without taking care to the exposure. As I was strongly underexposing the camera, I changed the parameters of the exposure, but the image I finally chose was the stolen image itself.

The only possibility in this case is a good editing effort, to turn the picture into a good work. I adjusted the general exposition with Camera Raw of even an entire stop, opening shadows with Fill Light command. I then managed the local contrast with Photoshop, augmenting it in different zones to entirely regulate the gamut of the picture. These operations obviously brought to a considerable and unacceptable augment of the noise. In this case is exceptionally hard to select the uniform zones to the detailed ones by hand, because an intricate mosaic constitutes the background. There are many lines that must be exalted and at the same time flat areas on which the noise is too evident. It is evidently a hyperbole; the best would be taking the picture again correcting the errors. From the didactic point of view though, this is an amazing opportunity to illustrate the technique we’re working on in this article.

The values of the filters and the used settings

Noise Ninja filter application of an image with Smart Sharpen already applied.

To compare the images, the filters have been applied with the same values. To obtain better result, it would be recommendable to accurately choose the parameters of each filter, but this is only a demonstration.

Noise Ninja, with the profile adequate to the ISO sensibility and the right camera model set, has been used with value 15 for strength and smoothness, both for luminance and color. Those relatively high values have been used to demonstrate the consequences of an aggressive use of the reduction noise filter. The contrast has been kept at 10 and sharpen filter at 0, to use Smart Sharpen only for acutance. Smart Sharpen has been used in its base version for a simpler learning, with 130 of amount and 0.8 of radius, kind of standard values for such dimensioned images. The TLR plug-in has been used to generate surface and edge masks, with High Resolution values for the camera and medium for Sharpen Width.

Noise and sharp layers with surface and edge masks respectively. Let’s notice that the blending option for the sharpen layer is luminosity.

Sharpen and noise reduction of Camera Raw have been set to zero and all of the operations have been done at 16 bit. Smart Sharpen and Noise Ninja have been applied under all the adjustment layers, which means that all the filter operations have been applied after the “developing” with Camera Raw and before the tonal corrections in Photoshop. At the end of your work, all the image versions have been flatten, converted to 8bit-sRGB and saved in JPEG format with 10 as compression value. The attached images are all cropped at 100% of the original image; no modification has been made to the native dimension of the picture. To comfortably compare all the images, I suggest downloading them and observing each on 100% zoom, as the aliasing effects could modify the acutance perception and the noise reduction. A compressed file with all the images of the article is available for the download (2.3 Mb).

Simple use of Noise Ninja and Smart Sharpen

Application of Smart Sharpen and Noise Ninja on two copy layers of the background. They also have a edge mask and a surface mask respectively generated from the TLR plug-in professional sharpen toolkit. The noise layer is under the sharpen layer, this last one with luminosity as blending mode.

The first image is the file without any filter. The chromatic noise is particularly annoying on pants, while in uniform background zones the luminance noise is irritating. The image is thick and less detailed because of the loss of sharpness due to the demosaicing process. To obtain an acceptable result, the noise must disappear from clothes, keeping at the same time the natural appearance that they are constituted of. Moreover, the background luminance should be reduced, without compromising its mosaic lines.

Just to be complete, this is the result you get using sharpen and noise reduction integrated in Camera Raw. The chromatic noise disappeared from pants, but their details too. More refined instruments will lead you to richer details. At the same time on the background there are artifacts that I find unpleasant, Noise Ninja is definitely more efficient.

Applying only Noise Ninja on the entire image, the result is amazing on uniform zones, but the algorithm keeps the sharpness of the background mosaic lines as well. Unfortunately though, the details of clothes are irreparably flatten, giving the picture a plastic and false aspect, particularly objectionable. The following application of Smart Sharpen allows to recover some acutance, but visibly augment the residual noise that hasn’t been filtered by Noise Ninja.

In like manner, applying only Smart Sharpen on the entire image doesn’t lead to any good result. The picture is sharpened but noise is amplified unacceptably. Using Noise Ninja after Smart Sharpen as well is disastrous.

Surface and edge mask usage

Edge mask generated by TLR professional sharpen toolkit plug-in. Let’s notice how part of the noise, both on the background and on the shirt, is interpreted from the plug-in as detail. Moreover, details and noise of pants are inextricably mixed.
The surface mask is equal but inverted.

Using Noise Ninja and Smart Sharpen together is one possible solution, trying to separate their effects so that the first one will be applied only on uniform areas and the second one only on the edges of the image. The difference compared to previous results is that no more filters are applied on the entire image. Where sharpen is applied noise reduction is not and vice versa.

TLR plug-in automatically generates some surface and edge masks. Two background-copy layers are created, one with surface mask and Noise Ninja and the other one on top with edge mask and Smart Sharpen. Please remember to put blend option to luminosity of the sharpen layer, so that the chromatic noise won’t be emphasized.

This kind of configuration used on our image allows satisfying results for the background, where the noise is almost completely gone from the flatten areas, while the mosaic lines are correctly accented from the sharpen. The shown example is only the result obtained automatically, adjusting Noise Ninja and Smart Sharpen values; varying layers opacity and ameliorating masks by hand you will achieve excellent results.

Excellent result anywhere, except in highly detailed zones, such as clothes. Augmenting the sharpen improves the acutance, but increases the noise and loose the fabric weft. Moreover TLR can’t generate a correct surface and edge mask. Noise and detail in this case are intimately related to each other and it is hard to separate them in a way that they can be filtered independently. Any solution will be a less satisfying compromise.

Augmenting the luminance detail filtering the chromatic noise

Same two-layers configuration without edge or surface masks.

Thinking about what is the noise, where is evident, which cases are annoying and what you would save of the image would bring to a satisfying solution. The first consideration you should do is that generally the chromatic noise is unpleasant, while the luminance noise, most of all if uniform, is in many cases acceptable. The second consideration is that noise is particularly visible in uniform areas of the image, while where the zone is detailed, even if noise is particularly intense, it always goes unnoticed. It could seem a banal statement, but it is good to underline that the luminance noise in highly detailed zones is rarely irritating.

To put in practice those ideas, let’s take the precedent configuration and simply eliminate the edge mask of the sharpen layer (also the noise layer mask could be eliminated, without the edge mask the surface one is completely unuseful), without forgetting that the blend option of the layer must be luminosity. Once again, compared to the firsts examples, the sharpen and noise reduction are applied separately. Both filters are applied to the totality of the image, but individually are applied to a blank copy of the background, therefore they doesn’t negatively interact as seen before.

Proceeding this way you obtain perfect details into clothes. The grain when visible is sharpen and pleasant, the chromatic noise disappeared but in the meantime the fabric weft is kept perfectly, the details of the fabric are set to the right value from the sharpening. Well, obviously the noise background, without the edge mask, augmented even in the flatten areas. Anyway, the grain obtained is defined and monochromatic, so much that the image could be acceptable without any other intervention.

If in some zones of the image a residual chromatic noise is still present, it is possible to eliminate it with a technique inspired to the one that eliminates the color fringing. The details are illustrated into the article Anti color fringing to eliminate the residual chromatic noise.

It is possible to automatize all of these passages downloading the action set Noise&Sharpen.

Local application of detail augment and noise reduction

Final image, with masks adjusted by hand, following the desired effect.

To obtain the best result ever, at this point it is necessary an intervention by hand on masks. For the definitive version of the image, I kept on pants the sharpen layer over the noise layer without any mask. On the shirt I only applied the noise reduction and no sharpen. I then added a slight Gaussian noise, as explained in the article Add noise to eliminate noise.

As far as background is concerned, I applied surface and edge masks automatically generated by TLR with a little of Dust&Scratches filter to smooth down a bit. This is because in noisy images the grain is interpreted from the plug-in as detail. At the same time, I turned the black zones of the edge mask into grey, so that the background has some details more and an insignificant grain, similar to clothes. Those forethoughts are necessary to avoid the plastic effect of the smooth surfaces obtained with aggressive passages of Noise Ninja. At the end of your work, some modification to the layer transparency to harmonize the image. Obviously the image is a pure example. Following your personal taste, clothes can be too sharpened and unnatural, you could dislike the grain on the background, etc. Anyway those are my personal choices, the important point is that you have two layers at your disposal over the background that make you obtain all of the desired effects, only varying opacity and masks.

In the complex, as the majority of the masks are generated automatically and that manual selections can be quickly done with laze and a shade of tenth pixel, the procedure for the local application of sharpen and the noise filter took at last 5 minutes. The results are astonishing if compared to the initial image. Pants are extraordinary detailed, background is smooth as if shot with 100 ISO and correctly exposed, the grain only give substance to the surfaces and is not visible if printed. The results are so convincing that I saved a shot that was completely wrong and I gave the work as the picture simply wasn’t exposed by the book.

Video tutorial

I realized a short video (in Italian) with a practical demonstration of the editing technique described in the article. This way, even the Photoshop beginner can see how to create surface and edge masks, how to generate sharpen and noise reduction layer, how to work with filters and how to modify the masks to modulate the plug-in effects.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

The majority of alternative and antique techniques use material that is sensitive to UV radiation but not to visible light. Moreover almost all the supports are slower than the usual silver nitrate paper. Therefore, it is not possible to use a simple enlarger as in dark room. It is necessary to use a big UV light source and print by contact using a printing frame to obtain the perfect contact between negative and print support.

In reality, at least theoretically, it is possible to use an enlarger, but in practice it is not sufficient to substitute the lamp with a UV one. Other problems make a machine for contact prints more practical and economical.

First of all, as the light quantity decreases with the distance square from the source and as the scarce sensibility of the materials, the light source must be powerful and efficiently frozen not to burn the negative. The exposition time with an eventual UV enlarger are long, on line 15 minutes are said to be necessary for a 18×20 bichromate gum, and this is impracticable with a cyanotype yet, technique that generally takes from 3 to 5 times the time required from a gum. Bigger formats would require hours of exposition, while gums contact print in a couple of minutes, independently from the format. Enlarging negatives can be a long, complex and tedious operation, but when a series of 20 prints from the same negative has to be printed, exposition time must be reasonable or at least inferior to the one required enlarging a negative. Without considering that now you can obtain high quality digital negatives quickly and without any effort.

The second big problem is that the majority of glasses filters generally used as objectives filters the UV. El Nikkor objectives let the 50% of UV radiation pass, therefore they could be a good starting point. But here’s another problem: the objectives are projected to minimize the optical aberration in the visible area, not in the ultraviolet one. Moreover there’s the same problem of focusing that we would have shooting on an IR film, and it doesn’t exist any simple way to correctly focus the negative on a print surface.

Rumors say that some years ago Durst announced an enlarger that printed on silver salt paper, on AZO paper and furthermore on Platinum and Palladium. I don’t know if the rumors are founded. The only thing I’m sure of is that the AZO paper enlarger cost 12.000 dollars plus another 5.500 for the light source, and that was quite an expensive solution for a UV enlarger.

To sum up, as obtaining enlarged negatives is not so difficult, contact printing lets you save some time, it is an economic and simple choice and eliminates all the aberration and focusing problems proper of the objectives.

The inside of the UV unit with 7 tubes of “black light” on. The emission of B type ultraviolet rays is contained; therefore any particular precaution is needed, such as in tanning box.

Talking about the materials choice, types of light and so on, on Unblinkingeye there’s a wonderful article by Sandy King titled Ultraviolet light sources for printing with the alternative processes, so I will not repeat what’s been already explained and deepened there.

Choosing the light can be an important variable, as the article quoted before says. The light source used in fact, more than execution rapidity, can influence contrast, color and more in general all the print characteristics.

Possibilities are boundless: from a simple tanning light (not suggested though, because it excessively heats up and emits a lot of B-type-UV rays, bad for skin and completely filtered by glass) to a bromograph, a machine used in the past by typographic houses to engrave off-set slabs (that has the advantage to create emptiness for the contact between negative and print, making useless the printing frame; the littlest has a functional surface of 50×70 cm, that allows easy big format prints), to the sophisticated AmerGraph ULF-28, dream of every contact printer.

Handle and interrupter of the UV lamp.

Generally though it is not necessary to use refined and complex machines. To obtain good prints it would be enough to use the sun, if the sun wouldn’t be used to be an inconstant source of light, hardly quantifiable, and most of all not disposable during the night, moment when the majority of the prints are done. During this article I will shortly describe the light source I use right now, an economical and simple solution to build that will give back excellent prints in a reasonable time. I take the occasion to give some advices to ameliorate your own UV source for contact prints.

The light source comes from tubes similar to those found in some discotheques, the ones that produce violet light that reflects on white clothes showing dust on them. The fact that it is used as constant light in public places should ensure anyone that there is no ultraviolet B type rays in them and that they are absolutely not harmful. Even if, for precaution, I do not look at the turned on tubes, I never had pain to my eyes or my head, as some printers says. I use Sylvania Blacklight-blue F18W/BLB-T8 that are 35€ each, but I think every kind of black light neon can be ok.

As I print at the most A3+ format, 32x48cm, I calculated the number of tubes to cover this surface, putting them together, that is 7 tubes of 60 cm that cover an area of 38×60 cm. Actually at least another tube would have been useful, as I see a slight loss of light on the vertical borders of the image. Therefore I suggest everyone who wants to print A3+ negative format to use at least 8 tubes of 60 cm, or cover not less than an area of 45×50 cm. The extern surface of the box must be studied in a way that it adapts to the used printing frame.

Tubes have been mounted as near as I could, that is a distance between the axis of approximately 5,5 cm, the neon supports don’t allow going further. If you find finer supports, it would be possible to augment the number of neon if the surface is equal. Even if it augments the total cost of the unit, it also augments the quantity of light, therefore it decreases the time of exposition.

The used neon are “Neon blacklight-blue”.

The distance of the neon from the printing-frame is kind of thin, 6,5 cm and for the little print I reduced the distance at 4 cm. The uniformity of the illumination never presented any sort of trouble of bands in correspondence of the tubes, therefore a distance of 5,5 or 6,5 cm between the tubes itself and the image plan allows a completely uniform enlightenment.

This sort of configuration gives back expositions of 2-3 minutes for a bichromate gum, 3-4 minutes for a brown print, 4-5 minutes for platinum/palladium and 10-15 minutes for a classical cyanotype.

The rest is all about a simple wood box with some tubes mounted inside. The external dimensions are 42x68x16cm (50x68x22cm if we count the protrusions). There are two handles on the upper part that help moving the unit. An interrupter, foot-actionable too, contemporaneously turns on and off all the neon. I should substitute the interrupter with a timer shortly, because often I forget to measure the exposition time. A timer should only be adjusted and then you can forget about your print, waiting for the alarm to ring while doing your own things.

Ventilation holes and UV-exposition-unit screen.

On the unit side there are some holes that allow the air circulation, avoiding an excessive temperature of the neon. This is an important point, as the UV-light quantity drastically decrease as the temperature increase. A little fan would be better and I will add it as soon as I change the interrupter with the timer. In any case, the box gets too hot during the long exposition of cyanotype prints. During bichromate gums the fan isn’t quite necessary. Fixing a fan would also limit the UV-rays out, for example putting right a siphon muff that would let the air out. The holes are just protected and I have to avoid passing near the box with another sensitized paper if I’m exposing a print.

Another trouble I had in the past is, at last, that the neon supports are projected to be fixed into walls and never be touched anymore. Moving around the box, the lateral supports became so flimsy to unwrap and let a tube falling down (that punctually broke on the printing frame). I completely solved this problem fitting in some polystyrene bars that will press on the supports of the neon.

Polystyrene between the border of the UV box and the support stirrups to avoid their aperture, letting the tubes fallino down.

Even if my UV-light box is perfectly efficient, last year I had the occasion to work with a printer that fixed the neon inside a static furniture. On the front, there’s a door that perfectly close, therefore it needs only to put the printing frame on its own sector under the lights. I must say that, if I should build another UV unit I would probably follow his example, as furniture would completely solve the falling down of neon, a door would contain the leak of UV radiations, it would be easy to mount a fan and a timer and there would be no moving, no taking and no tiding up the unit, and this is quite a lot. You should only open the door and inserting the printing frame, everything is within reach. The only disadvantage is that this way you cannot print on a support bigger than the furniture itself. For example, if you’d print A3+ negatives centered on a 50×70 cm paper, the printing frame would measure 60×80 cm, with an illumination box of 45×60. Those dimensions are reduced if compared with eventual furniture that allows the printing on 50×70 cm. Once said that, once accurately decided the dimensions of the print you will realize, furniture is absolutely more comfortable then a mobile box.

The electronic microscope diaphragms are splendid pinhole of perfectly known and regular diameter, but they are small (circular 3mm slides) and they have to be mounted on bigger support slide not to ruin them and to use them more easily. This article will expose some suggestions that will let you mount them in an easy and efficient way. The holes are not sold mounted as the exigencies of every photographer could vary.

The necessary currency material: an aluminum tin can, some black adhesive tape (the one used by electricians) and an instrument to make 2mm holes. If you got a drill and a 2mm drill bit, well you got the whole! But unfortunately not everyone has a little workshop in its house. I procured a 2mm punch, which is 1,50 euros in any ironmonger’s. I think that everyone has a hammer in its house, as well as a piece of compact cardboard that will be your pad, therefore the expense to get everything you need is quite contained.

Let’s start cutting a piece of aluminum from the tin can. It must be of the desired dimensions, let’s say up from a cm2. Let’s cut a couple of centimeters of tape or put the aluminum slide at the center of it. It is not necessary that they fast completely to each other, the tape will be taken apart during next step. Lay everything on your paper pad, the tape looking on top, put the punch in the center and beat with your hammer, so that you contemporary create a hole in the tape and in the aluminum.

At this point you can detach the tape and put it within reach, for example fasten at the border of your table. If you used the punch, the slide will be bended on one side and will present a little cone on the opposite side. Therefore you must turn it and give a couple of hits with your hammer to flatten it. It could be necessary to turn the slide again and give some little smacks to both sides. If there’s some smears, it could be useful some sandpaper, but it is usually easy to form clean and faultless holes. If the slide is big and is not covered entirely by tape, for example in the case the slide will be an entire wall of the pinhole camera, it is the moment when you must paint it black. Black opaque spray painting is not expensive and will dry in a short time.

At this point it is necessary to work with precision. The idea is to put the electronic microscope diaphragm on the table you’re working on. The pierced tape must adhere with the diaphragm, in a way that the diaphragm hole will be exactly centered with the hole of the tape. Thanks to the tape glue, the diaphragm will be stuck. Then you put the tape on the surface, with the glue and the diaphragm side looking to the top; you make the aluminum slide adhere to the tape, in a way that all the holes will be superimposed. This way, the microscope diaphragm is free at the center of the sandwich, between adhesive tape and one-millimeter aluminum all around its border.

I personally find tables a little bit uncomfortable, as there’s no space for fingers to work. So I put the microscope diaphragm on a one-centimeter-diameter cylinder, some centimeters long. I use a lipstick case, but just because it was the first thing that came into my mind with that precise shape. This trick helps me put my wrists on the table and lets my fingers come closer the diaphragm. It is easy to put the holes together looking through the tape hole before and through the aluminum after.

That’s all, folks. You just need to control the tape is perfectly stuck and the slide perfectly mounted in the center. Easier said than done. I mounted tenth diaphragms for now, and no one was wrong, therefore the procedure I explained shouldn’t be so hard.

At this point you can paint the inside of the diaphragms with a black felt-tip if you want, but I strongly suggest to do this only in case of real need, since you could damage the hole. Reflection problems could bear only with lots of sun and with backlight pictures; the majority of the pictures and cloudy days don’t require painted holes.

The dimensions of the support slide depend on the thickness of the material on which the rest of the box was made of. The more it is thick the bigger the support slide must be, to move away widths that could project shadows, limiting the effective dimension of the image recorded on sensitive supports. To the limit, one wall of the box can be built with the aluminum of a tin can. If you’re using a tin box, the metal is thin enough to allow 2mm-holes directly in the cover of the box.

Best quality pinhole I could find was the diaphragm of electronic microscope.

The apertures are perfectly circular, as you can notice from the microscope pictures attached with the article. The apertures are even more precise than the ones obtained with the laser. This is because, except you’re one of the few person that switched on a rapid impulses laser, in the exact moment a laser beam digs the hole in the metallic slide, it creates local micro-explosions due to the thermal diffusion. The result is that the hole is partially fringed. In the case of electronic microscope diaphragms, the hole is perfectly clean and circular.

Attempt with 0.3mm pinhole, 60mm focal length, image size 12cm x 15cm. The image is clearer than the ones shot with those kind of aperture obtained with perforation.

Holes have a perfectly known diameter. I bought 150µm, 300µm, 400µm, 600µm and 800µm. Therefore, there’s no waste of time in measuring the hole with the negative method, and the incertitude it bring within. This way, you can build multi-holes pinhole cameras, being sure that the exposition will be the same for each hole. It was a huge problem in the past, when the holes were handcrafted. The diameters I chose allow the construction of pinhole cameras with focal length between 15mm (f/100) and 45 cm (f/556), following the classical tables of optimal pinholes diameters. Higher focal lengths can be achieved using diameters larger than 0,8 mm. It is easy to make round and clean holes such as the ones of the electronic microscopes diaphragms using a simple precise perforator.

Detail of the attempt reported on top. The area is not larger than a couple of centimeters per side. The noise is due to the scanner. I unfortunately own only an old scanner that does not allow decent enlargement.

The thickness of the laminate is very thin, limiting the tunnel reflections inside the hole on a thick slide. Although this could be useful, it could be necessary to blacken the inside of the hole. A suggestion, that I didn’t tried, is using a bath of selenium toner. Passing delicately a felt-tip all around the hole, a thin one, similar to those used to write on CD’s, is another solution. This is my method and the results are more than satisfying. In any case, the holes I used are probably the less affected from reflection. Before blacken the hole, I suggest some shots of attempt, not to damage the hole. If you do not need to eliminate eventual reflections, the microscope diaphragm can be used as they are.

The hole of the microscope diaphragm is at the center of a circular 3mm thick slide in copper. The most simple way to use it is mounting it on a support slide. It is fragile and precise material therefore you must be careful. Once you mounted the material on a support slide, it becomes practical and resistant.

I had to buy lots of holes, so I sell some. The price is 10 euros per hole and 1 euro for an ordinary sending in Italy. There’s the possibility of a discount for the purchase of many holes, anyway the sending price is fixed in 1 euro.

pinholes from microscope diaphragms

The following galleries shows some pictures took from the microscope of the pinholes this article talks about, obtained using electronic microscope diaphragms.

Just take a look to the holes; they’re perfectly circular and their borders are absolutely clean or faultless.

Thanks to Adrien Arles who realized those pictures of the pinholes with the microscope.

pinholes realized with a laser

The following gallery shows picture of pinholes obtained through laser perforation.

It is possible only an indicative confrontation with the microscope diaphragms, as it should be necessary to take pictures using the same focal length and the same hole diameter of both for the system. Although those details, it is clear that the laser holes are less rounded and uniform compared to the electronic microscope diaphragms. Most of all, the laser holes has a lot of faults on the borders, and this could cause diffraction problems.

Thanks to Ruscello Claudio who realized the laser holes and the images here attached.

Conclusions

The microscope diaphragms described in this article seem to be the most precise obtainable pinhole. Compared to the renowned laser holes, diaphragms are more rounded and precise; they do not have any irregular or smeared border that could cause diffraction problems, decreasing the quality of the image. The diaphragms also have a known and constant diameter, and this simplifies the realization of multi-pinholes cameras.

The research of the perfect technique, from the deepest black, to the larger gamut, to the most defined detail, but even to the most expressive and original picture, turns sometime photography into a boring and repetitive job, converting the shooting into some more and more formal and disconnected tests that aim to the original objective of this occupation: creativity.

Sometime I feel like I need to go back to the ludic aspect of photography, that sensation that lets you freely create, the pleasure of entering a dark room to experiment and play. When the last months have been spent testing if that particular sizing for platinum better lighten the image, trying to complete that series of images for a certain portfolio or repeating again and again the calibration procedure on digital negatives… well, I swear that abandon for one day seriousness and discipline makes you feel the pure pleasure of photography.

Three pictures of palaces from the “Esplanade des Olympiades” in Paris, 2007. Color prints from black-and-white negatives. Each picture size is: 18x24cm on satin Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper

The other day I had the possibility to play a little with color prints. I took back from my closet an old RA-4 kit of the 90’s and a box of color paper that I bought some years ago, and used with scarce success. I then printed some black-and-white pictures, to obtain monochromatic pictures. The huge advantage in contrast to toning is that every color can be easily obtained. You do not only have the choice of the picture tint, but also you can choose every kind of saturation, from neutral images up to deepest colors that every kind of paper can give in return.

The first trouble is that color negatives have a mask absent on black-and-white negatives. Literature suggests interposing a non-exposed film color but developed in the optical path of the enlarger, or an 85B orange filter. As I didn’t have both of them, I thought I could print on a Agfa Copyjet film a square similar in color to the mask. Apart from the difficulty in determine the precise color, once positioned the handcrafted filter on the enlarger I had an unpleasant surprise. When interposed between negative and paper, the image is completely blurred, unless printing a big filter and positioning it in perfect contact with the paper. When the hand made filter is positioned between the light and the negative, the results are curious halos on the print. The material practically interacts in a too strong manner with the light and I had to renounce.

Agfa Copyjet film (with a colored background filter printed with an Epson 2100) used as filter between light and negative gives back curious reflexes on the print.

Cyan, magenta and yellow filters used without the mask to color the base e b&w film, have a reduced impact on the color of the print. Therefore I used contrast filters on an other enlarger head for black-and-white prints, which efficaciously color the light. This way it is harder to obtain the exact desired color, as it is easier to resonate using the Maxwell triangle: the three primary colors of additive synthesis (red, green and blue) at the top of the triangle and the three complementary colors of subtractive synthesis (cyan, magenta and yellow) on the borders of the triangle. So, if you want to obtain a redder print, you would just augment the filter of the opposite color, the cyan. In the same way, if you want a more yellow print, you would just diminish the yellow filter or contemporary augment cyan and magenta.

Gust of sea in Cabo Polonio (Uruguay), 2007. Color prints from black-and-white negatives. Size: 18×24 on satin Fujicolor Crystal Archive.

Using contrast filters instead of color filters, this simple procedure partially fails and the obtained colors are the one you must focus on. They give an interesting effect anyway.

I noticed that prints looses a lot of contrast compared to ones obtained on black-and-white paper, at least with the materials I used. Negatives with high-density range, adapted to Van Dyke Brown prints, can be correctly printed, while the ones for silver chloro-bromides print without blacks and without whites. At the same time, images are pleasant, most of all when dark printed, and this is my personal taste.

Obviously, Photoshop is one click far away from the work explained in those pages… but craftsmanship would be loss, and this was the principal intent of the article.

Historical note on carbon print

At the beginning photography produced unstable images. Just think about the first pictures printed on salted paper by Fox Talbot since 1841, when there wasn’t an adequate fixing bath yet. Later on, numerous processes were activated, such as protective gold or selenium toning, that still are in use today to preserve analogical pictures. But stability in time still was the weak point of photography.

Palladium or platinum print and carbon print were two of the most stable and beautiful techniques of the entire history of photography that the researches for the problem we talked before found.

Even if the first carbon print patent date back to 1855, the image only contained shadows, lights were completely washed away. After the well-known remarque de Fargier about the hardening deepness of the gelatin and the invention during the following years of the image transfer, the carbon print technique was patented in 1865 by Joseph W. Swan, under the form we still use nowadays.

The prints obtained with this method solved the problem of the stability and moreover had an extraordinary fine and defined image. Amazing when one thinks that they were produced only with animal gelatin and powdered carbon.

Therefore, the carbon print knew a great success and was considered more and more the best technique print ever. It has been largely used till the fifties, when its industrial production stopped completely. Today, printing with this technique means build all the material with your own hands, and unfortunately the complexity of the procedure limits its diffusion.

Characteristics of the carbon print

Carbon prints are absolutely the most stable. They’re not made of a metallic deposit, which can be attacked or oxidized, but made of a pigment, simple carbon dust at its origin, watercolor or tempera nowadays. Those pigments derive from some kind of grounds and therefore are completely inactive. Photography history has less than a couple of centuries and all the questions about the conservation of the image on the really long term are still open. Antique paintings and cave art survived through millenniums, so carbon prints, manufactured with the same ingredients and pigments, should have long life.

Apart from its great stability, carbon prints are characterized by an excellent gamut, rich and long, and by the sensation of presence that turn it into unique productions. This is due to three reasons:

1. All of the great silver chloro-bromides fiber paper printers know that the glossy paper valorizes shadows and produces more intense blacks. At the same time though, high, finer and more delicate lights can be obtained only on matte paper. Carbon print is brilliant in shadows and opaque in lights, for that reason it is possible to obtain the best result for the entire gamut.
2. The print is not constituted by a metallic depot (silver, platinum, etc) that penetrates into the fibers of the paper, but by a pigmented, more or less thick gelatin layer fixed on the paper. This augments the micro-contrast and gives the sensation that the picture “comes out” of the paper.
3. The sensation of a three-dimensional presence is augmented by the fact that the surface of the print is not smooth. The gelatin layer is more thick in shadows and finer in lights. This difference of thickness can be more than 0.3 millimeters and it is perceivable to the naked eye.

Almost a century and a half after its invention, all of the characteristics we talked about before made this technique the best one ever.

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Technical description of the carbon print

Carbon print is a slow and complex process that requires preparation, dedication and strictness. Moreover, as everything is about gelatin consistency and its power of water absorbance, consistent results arrive only when dark room temperature and humidity are strictly controlled. It is necessary also to control the temperature of every single bath used, with an incertitude generally smaller than 1°C, knowing that different temperatures are necessary for each step of the printing. The choice of the materials is important as well, as the details of the procedure itself.

I will also give a describing introduction to carbon print. An interested reader could consult the bibliography at the end of the page or participate to a stage of formation.

The final support on which the print will be reported is called “transport paper”. It must be prepared, or sized, with a uniform layer of gelatin whose characteristics such as thickness, bloom degree (the measure of the gelatin hardness), hardening and so on are essential for the final result. The gelatin used for sizing also contains formaldehyde, which disinfects the organic material used in the process, but most of all harden the gelatin layer. This solidification is not immediate; therefore it is necessary to size the paper some days before passing to the real print.

In the successive days the “carbon tissue” can be prepared; this is the support on which the pigmented gelatin will be dripped, and will be exposed and transferred on the transport paper.

The choice of the used material as base for the carbon tissue plays a big role on the final result. The pigmented gelatin is prepared mixing a pigment with sugar, glycerin, alcohol and naturally gelatin. The characteristics of this last ingredient, once again, are very important for this final result. All the other ingredients, whose use is still debated, are useful to make the gelatin an elastic substance, control its humidity degree, avoid the formation of bubbles and so on. This gelatin solution, prepared with care, is stretched out on the carbon tissue support, to obtain a uniform layer, without defects, bubbles, deposit of pigments, etc…

The preparation of a good quality carbon tissue is the most difficult part of the carbon print.

Once the carbon tissue is dried (24-48 hours), it is sensitized in an ammonium (or potassium) bi-chromed solution, which is the salt sensible to light, and ammonia, which is useful to control the penetration of the chromo salt inside the gelatin layer and the mechanical properties of this last one. The sensible paper is dried in dark for a determined time and then exposed to contact (that is the negative has the final image dimension) using an ultraviolet light source.

During the exposition of the carbon tissue the transport paper must be soaked, because the transfer of the image from one to another is possible only thanks to an exchange of humidity between the layers of gelatin. Once the exposition is over, the carbon tissue is quickly immerged in a basin of water and put in contact with transport paper, handle to eliminate all the bubbles of air and obtain a perfect contact between the supports. Once they are out of the water, they are put under a press.

Both papers are put back in hot water. After a couple of minutes it is possible to detach the carbon tissue from the transport paper. And here’s start the development and cleaning phase. It is necessary to continuously shake the basins to detach the gelatin that didn’t hardened during the exposition. In this phase the image finally starts to appear. The development is complete once that, suspending the paper out of the water, there’s no more run-off pigment on the white borders of the print. The developing time can’t be extended as much as one likes (apart from the use of colder water), because after ten minutes gases can form in paper and they can cause the detachment of the gelatin or blistering (micro bubbles). To avoid those problems, once the development has been obtained correctly, the print must be immerged in a basin of cold water that stops completely the developing phase. Then the paper and the borders must be cleaned.

When the paper is dried, the image must be treated in a sodium metabisulfite bath that eliminates every single trace of dichromate. After a last drying, there’s the final spotting of the print.

All these efforts will be rewarded by magnificent of carbon prints, one of the most beautiful techniques invented during the entire history of the photography.

Bibliography

The reader interested to those arguments should read Les procèdès au charbon, by Monckhoven, Lièbert, Colson, Tranchant, Schneeberger, Jean Michel Place editions.

Damiano Bianca wrote a good article: “la stampa al carbone, il mito” from which the majority of the information in this article are obtained. Damiano Bianca also organizes carbon print courses and offers a precious carbon print service.

All the images of the “I demoni” series are shot with a catadioptric objective, a lens gifted with a particular bokeh, that gives a particular out-of-focus. In fact, even if the out-of-focus is intense, the objects have an important spatial structure, as it was a superimposition of the different images. The sign of the catadioptric objective is occasionally visible in those little rings superimposed to the image, partial or complete, which are the luminous marks of points deformed by the ring diaphragm of the objective.

Pictures are voluntarily out-of-focus to exploit this category of mirrored objectives and are voluntarily under-exposed to obtain a dark and gloomy atmosphere.

The subjects of the series are the sculptures of the grotesque masks of the Pont Neuf in Paris. They should have been primarily on the Germain Pilon (1528?-1590) and they were often substituted during the centuries due to the stone decay.

Even if the shot has been taken digital, the editing of the image is limited to current intervention under the enlarger: contrast managing, vignetting, Dodging and burning.

The passage from digital to traditional carbon print happens thanks to the usage of an ink jet negative, a modern and still experimental technique, which allows the closure of the circle between a technology born at the beginning of photography history and the most advanced technology available today.

Prints are realized by Damiano Bianca, one of the best Italian carbon printer.

The support is Fabriano Artistico traditional white 300g/m2 paper, hot pressed, therefore satin surface, essential for the velvety giveback researched in the series of i demoni. The absence of chemical whitening agents, which gives the pleasant warm tone of paper, as well as the absence of chlorine and acids together with 100% cotton fibers, makes Fabriano Artistico traditional white a beautiful paper with an excellent conservation in time.

Watercolor (finer and better quality than tempera) used to print are a mixture of two colors. The basis is carbon black, probably the first pigment of the human history and the nearest to vintage carbon print. It is an almost neutral black, gifted of an excellent stability. It is not attacked by light either by acids or alkali. The second ingredient is Payne grey, a mixture of black and blue (a mixture of Prussian blue or ultramarine and ivory black, with a little hint of red). Once again its stability is outstanding, as it is created only with natural clays. It has been used for i demoni carbon prints, because it is a cold grey, which allows to counterbalance the warm tint of the used paper. Cold prints are generally more contrasted in shadows; since i demoni are dark pictures, it is essential not to use warm pigments.

It is possible to buy Mascarons du Pont Neuf carbon prints at the gallery http://chambre-avec-vues.com.

Even if digital pictures noise is often related to analogical films grain, it is generally aesthetically less pleasant than the second one and it is better do everything possible not to have noise. Apart from useful hints while taking pictures, there are many great post-production systems to filter noise keeping the best of the detail, such as Noise Ninja, also available as a Photoshop plug-in.

Noise Ninja works for the majority of situations; it cleans images from its uniform noise zones, such as skies, leaving the detailed parts of the image almost untouched. Moreover, if it is applied with a border mask, such as the one produced by the script TLR Sharpening Toolkit, and a little of manual work to ameliorate the protection mask, the results are excellent.

There are cases where results are not so good as exposed in the introduction. In fact, if the image has been shot with little light and it should have shadows opened and contrast augmented in photo editing, even with a 16-bit raw file, noise is too strong in the image, which is plenty of unaesthetic artifacts or, in jargon, the file crushes.

Applying a strong anti-noise filter all the artifacts are eliminated (even if some stains remain), but the image turns into some plastic aspect. I would like to point out that, even not using a protection mask (for a didactic aim) and applying the filter at the maximum of its power, all the details focused on the left are acceptable.

The application of a filter to remove the noise ameliorates only in a measure the situation. Applied in a weak way, it can’t eliminate the artifacts amplified by the photo editing. Applied in a strong way, it eliminates the noise but the stains of artifacts remain. The big problem is mostly that the picture looks plastic and fake. This smooth and unreal aspect unfortunately is more and more often visible on the Net and also in some publications of a certain level, symptom of a bad aesthetic taste of the author and of a scarce knowledge of the means of photo editing software.

The solution exists and is very simple. To find it, let’s think that the grain is not unpleasant itself, actually it donates body and matter to the image. I would like to eliminate the defects of the noise, without completely flatten the picture. The digital noise is unpleasant because:

• it augments the chromatic noise: pictures with a strong but monochromatic grain effect are pleasant; pictures full of colored pixels are awful.
• the noise is not uniform: the zones with photo editing have more intense noise, therefore the computer work is more evident.
• the strong application of photo editing not only augment the regular grain of the image, but also makes some other artifacts appears such as banding phenomenon, definitely less aesthetic than the analogical grain or the one simulated digitally.
• noise and grain are not the same; the first one is unpleasant, the second one is generally acceptable.

Adding a little of gaussian and monochromatic noise is useful to mask the remaining artifacts, adding a pleasant grain that recalls films and gives body to the picture.

A file with a uniform and monochromatic noise doesn’t have all those drawbacks. It is sufficient to eliminate the unpleasant noise, smoothing the file and adding a uniform noise to remove a sesation of plastic objects from the edited file. As easy as pie.

To obtain a pleasant result, artifacts must be completely eliminated applying a strong anti-noise filter, without hesitating in using maximum filters values. Not to damage the image, it is better to protect with a mask the zones where details must be maintained and where there’s no artifacts. To remove this kind of plastic effect it is recommended to add a slight monochromatic Gaussian noise (for example less than 1,50%). It is a digital noise, but it is small and uniform, so it will be like grain more than noise. In any case it will be an effect more aesthetic than the original noise amplified by the editing. This way the noise will be constant on the entire image, will recall the monochromatic grain of films and will avoid the unpleasant plastic effect of the anti-noise filters.

It actually eliminates the noise to add a slight simulated grain.

Note: to realize the differences, I suggest to download the three pictures and visualize them at 100%, because if the browser window is too small, the downsized picture creates aliasing effects that avoid what is described in the article.

I’ve been always disappointed by black and white print that I obtained with my Epson 2100. A certain tonal dryness, but most of all unpleasant color dominants. Today I found myself in a position where obtaining acceptable and neuter prints was necessary, so I made some attempts with papers and settings till I found the right compromise. The article I’m going to write is not a deep tutorial on how to obtain black and white fine art prints using an Epson 2100. If you need the perfect b&w print, you need alternative third part ink and work with proper print Rip. The article is about some forethought that gives back decent b&w prints with lowest effort.

All of the papers I have tried, either opaque or brilliant, gave unsatisfying results printing only with the black ink, and using Photoshop color management and generic Epson profiles. Black are deep and I can not notice the resolution loss as the Internet forums say. But the response curve is strongly modified, flattening the middle tones. Therefore prints are smooth and without substance.

On Ilfrod Galerie Smooth Gloss Paper, Photoshop color management, and generic Epson profile for glossy paper, I obtained a discreet print, not completely neuter, but surely acceptable.

On Epson Photo Paper (glossy paper), Photoshop color management and generic Epson profile for glossy paper, I obtain a slight magenta dominant, not strongly unpleasant but surely evident, which means a useless print if you’re a little exigent.

Print on Epson Photo Paper using the black ink of the 2100. Let’s notice the flattening of contrast in middle tones.

On Matte Paper Heavyweight, Photoshop management color and generic Epson profile for matte paper (black photo ink), the result is a green dominant, particularly distasteful. Warm and sepia tones are particularly wonderful, I can stand blues, but the green dominants are unwatchable.

I use to work with Photoshop color management and Epson generic profile, obtaining superb results in the color print. As I tested the (awful) results of black and white, I then tried to leave the printer driver to manage the colors. Therefore I printed on Matte Paper Heavyweight, selecting Matte Paper as support and Epson calibration with 1.8 gamma as default. The print is the best I obtained up to now. Contrast and curve similar to the photo inside the monitor, grays more neuter than the ones I obtained with any other combination of paper and color profiles.

It seems like for a domestic use, without searching the absolute perfection, if you want to print decent black and white pictures with the Epson 2100, it is better to avoid the Photoshop color management and standard icc profiles.

Working on the tests I described before, I also solved a problem of my printer that went on for weeks.

The function that pointed the image at the center of the paper suddenly stopped working, without touching the driver or installing any new peripheral. A little 12x18cm image, placed at the center of the paper, would have been printed in an angle and cut of some centimeters, such as the printer would have put it partially outside the printing area, on the upper left side. And this was a problem of every format, from 10×15 to A3+.

I tried to install the latest version, but the problem wasn’t solved yet. Maybe the problem was due to Photoshop and not to the printer driver. Today I saw a solution that allows a correct printing. In the Photoshop window I thick the voice center image, therefore the image is positioned at the center of the paper. Than I remove the tick and Photoshop turns into manual system, but leaves top and left value generated by the automatic function. This way, the image is centered into the paper.

All of the cyanotype toning formulas that I tried, completely bleaching the image in an alkali and re-developing it in a tanning agent for a long time, gave red-browned flat hues with a little dmax. I always obtained best results with long tanning bathes and a quick immersion in a diluted alkali, which gave a print with warm grey, brown or pink lights, while shadows are intense blue, slightly violet or black. A part of the original blue of the cyanotype is conserved in the final print, giving not only a cold hue to shadows, but also keeping relatively high the dmax, penalized by a complete alkaline whitening.

I think this is cyanotype toning big deal. The contrast drop in the middle tones can be corrected applying the right curve, the flattening of the high lights often creates a delicate effect of softness and lightness; but the loss of shadow density is a problem that still doesn’t have a solution. Certain images work even without blacks, all played on pastel colors, but others need the strength of intense and deep shadows.

Toning formulas that promise deep blacks, neutral lights and no paper dyeing (such as tea or concentrated tannic acid) are found in literature. In general they are variants of the procedure described at the beginning: alkali and tanning. The order of baths, the repetition or not of the successive immersions, ph control, intermediate washings and the tanning or/and alkali nature are the changeable elements. Those variations have a strong impact on final return, but they always have the same denominator: flatness of hues and dmax reduction. But I’m still searching for the magical combination that intensify a cyanotype rather than reducing it, turning the print into a palladium image infinitely less expensive.

Serendipity against severity

Moloch. Dualtone cyanotype: 30″ bleach 1%, acetic acid 0.1%, 5′ tannic acid1%, 5′ acetic acid 0.1%. Fabriano Paper 50, 25x35cm; image dimension: 18x27cm.

Yesterday night I made some attempts with some formulas. As usual, I didn’t follow a scientific method but a creative one, letting creativity and fate play their role. I tried in the past to formalize with strictness dark room tests, but I always failed. The thing is that some of the variables are hard to control, as temperature and environment humidity. Paper characteristics change from one stock to another and little variations are amplified. Moreover, because of the never-ending number of dissimilarities, it is required an infinite patience. It would be necessary to made them change one of a time, so I’d need thousands and thousands of tests and dark room days. Obviously, only printing Stouffer palettes to have the maximum rigor and the best ease of interpretation. This way, no image will be printed and life will be spent in taking boring tests. I’m sorry, but I’m a photographer and I’m not a lab technician. Life’s too short and all of the pictures I don’t take are images lost forever.

In certain cases I rather let variables evolve and print in an intuitive, not rigorous manner. Serendipity is a gift useful as much as meticulousness, while studying alternative techniques. By the way, a similar approach is found in many other areas. A sailboat can be managed because it gives back equilibrium; controlling every detail in a so difficult system or writing motion equations would be impossible.

Cyanotype toning material

Aamon. Cyanotype toning: 5′ tannic acid 1%, 5′ ammonia 1%, 5′ acetic acid 0,1%. Dark points are inside the negative and do not depend from toning. Rives BFK Paper, 28x38cm. Image dimension 18x26cm.

I therefore used a digital negative with color and curve adapted to carbon print. Cyanotype requires a lower difference of density, which means that images printed with those negatives will have completely posterized and white light, a strong contrast and a marked grain. In this case, those defects are not frustrating. I can see how toning behave with completely white lights in zones that didn’t receive any exposition. Too high contrast compensates the toning flatness. Image grain can be amplified or reduced during the process, and this is interesting information too.

I used daemon pictures, the Mascarons du Pont Neuf of Paris, because their negatives have many transparent parts, so I do have large zones in prints where blue is the deepest I can obtain on cyanotypes. Negatives are exposed for 12 minutes, the reference exposition timing, that in my case gave the deepest blue I can achieve. A higher exposition blends shadows without augmenting dmax.

It is recycle paper, and those are the variables that I deliberately choose not to control. It is the back of some not successful gum prints, VDB or cyanotypes. It is a paper that already went under chemical and mechanical treatments. Some sheets are sized to gelatine and some no. Brands are from Arche Platine, Fabriano Artistico, Fabriano 50, Rives BFK, Canson “C” grain. Some cyanotypes, before toning, have been left for some days oxidizing, to obtain a definitive color, some other only a few hours.

Tannic acid is an old 1994 package. In every case, due to past experiences, I still haven’t seen big differences between tannic acid concentration and solution (except for the paper hue due to tea). So I’d say that the active ingredient is still quite functioning.

Kai Hamman cyanotype toning

Moloch. Complete cyanotype toning: 5′ ammonia 1%, 1′ acetic acid 0.1%, 5′ tannic acid 1%, 5′ acetic acid 0.1%. Bubble stains were present on paper even before printing the cyanotype and they do not depend from toning. Fabriano Paper Rives BFK, 28x38cm; image dimension: 17x26cm.

Kai Hamann published a toning procedure whom results, if not modified during scanning, are extremely astonishing. The reported examples have a pink hue that I easily recognize, some other are perfectly neutral, but most of all shadows have an intense and deep black, as far as in video some prints seem palladium ones or perfect Van Dyke Browns.

Resuming the procedure described on his site, Kai Hammann toning is the following: acetic acid 1%, water washing, ammonia 0,5% between 1 and 16 minutes depending on the required hue, water washing, acetic acid 1%, water washing, tannic acid 1% for some minutes, acetic acid washing 1%. At that time he suggests a method to control the final hue of the print, adding one more softly alkali bath after the last washing, but I didn’t explore this way because the last acid bath in Kai Hamann’s table seem having the most cold and neutral hues, whose I’m interested in.

Carrying out the procedure to the letter gave wonderful results, often with beautiful hues, but it was still impossible to obtain a black print and contain the dmax loss. Bleaching the image with ammonia gave prints with pink-browned lights and vaguely neutral shadows, something like black-purplish but absolutely not deep. Bleaching only a part of prints for some seconds, I obtain a familiar effect of warm gray high lights and purplish blue shadows, but even in this case I lose dmax.

Therefore the proposed toning technique doesn’t work for me. I do not know if it is due to the ammonia or tannic acid quality, water or –more probably- cyanotype formula and composition (ammoniacal ferric citrate is a bad defined compound and it varies from package to package).

Interesting collateral and useful information –long live serendipity!- is that the use of acetic acid bath, even if diluted, for example 0.1%, between alkali and tannic, sensibly preserves the bath itself from contamination. Bathing even only one picture directly from an alkalic bath to tannic acid turns this last into a brown compound and easily gets the paper dirty. In two or three images the tannic solution is practically useless. Even an intermediate water bath easily contaminates the tannic acid and the washing bath becomes toning itself, therefore it must be regularly changed. Acetic acid bath gets less dirty and most of all allowed the usage of tannic acid during the entire session without any visible alteration.

Support for hydrochloric acid cyanotype

Hydrochloric acid is often cited as cyanotype support. It is said to augment blue dmax, giving a darker and deeper hue to shadows, almost black, but also providing neutral middle tones, such as metallic grey. I found indications on its use as first developing bath (I use very diluted acetic acid or water) or toning-support.

I tried this last procedure, immersing a washed and dried cyanotype in a hydrochloric acid 2% solution for 20’, but the color hasn’t changed at all and the dmax absolutely hasn’t augmented.

I don’t want to try higher concentrations, because hydrochloric acid, more than dangerous, gets paper fibers fragile. I still have to verify if hydrochloric acid as development bath achieve the described results. I wouldn’t be willing to use concentrated acid anyway, since some sources cite the possibility of expansion for cyanide gases when a not perfectly washed cyanotype is bathed in an acid.

Paper developer as alkali in cyanotype toning

Some sources cites ammonia and tannic acid toning as “red brown”, while giving a toning formula of “grey black” that uses a paper developer as alkali bath instead of ammonia or sodium carbonate. I tried this combination too, using a new diluted developer 1+9.

I was expecting a hue slightly different from the ammonia one, not to hope in dmax miracles. I actually obtained wonderful purplish hues, most of all in the tannic acid combinations, some seconds inside the developer and then tannic acid again, but it is absolutely impossible to obtain black cyanotypes without dmax loss during toning.

Black cyanotype is still far away

All of the described cyanotype toning techniques makes splendid results, particular and unique images, delicate hues, optimal gum prints backgrounds, etc… No one that I tried, at least in my case, is able to produce a black toning, intensification or at least a limited dmax loss, which happens every time I tone a cyanotype. A hydrochloric acid bath particularly seems not to influence a washed and dried cyanotype.

Collateral information, a useful forethought consists in using acetic acid baths between alkali and tannic acid to preserve this last solution, sensibly augmenting its life.